Tabu
Mercifully Short Review by Jonathan Empson
God, this is awful.
Pilar is a middle-aged woman, plain but with expressive eyes. She believes in God, is bothered by the attentions of a mediocre painter and worries about the people around her – including Aurora, the batty old neighbour in her Lisbon apartment block.
Then Aurora dies.
After the funeral, Pilar goes for a coffee with Gian-Luca, whom Aurora tried to contact in her final hours. The rest of this bizarre and interminable film consists of Gian-Luca telling, in voiceover, the story of Aurora’s early life in Africa and the scandal that drove them apart. This footage is beautifully shot in black and white, but with no dialogue, only sound effects.
This is almost a parody of an art-house film, and if it hadn’t had such good reviews elsewhere, I’d think I’d been invited to the screening as some kind of fuck-you for my critical reviews of the distributor’s other releases. 2/10
Released May 16, 2013.
Jonathan Empson is currently writing an eight-part TV series called Dangerously Smart for Palm Beach Pictures.
Jonathan’s TV pilot script Chrome was nominated for an AWGIE in 2010, and his feature script Leonardo’s War reached the top 30 of the 2012 Nicholl Fellowships competition.
He is represented by Rick Raftos Management.